Backstage 26: Walking After Midnight
by Aadler
Summary: Sometimes the enemy you can count on is the friend you need most.
1. Part 1

**Walking After Midnight**  
(the Music of Pain Remix)  
by Aadler  
**Copyright April 2007**

* * *

Disclaimer: Characters from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

This story is a remix (done for Remix Redux)  
of "Getting It", by Bastard Snow.

* * *

Part I

Basically, it was just that kind of night. That was what it came down to.

Angel had sensed it in the air almost from the moment he awoke. Something … hard to name, hard to define, but it was there. Like the restlessness certain animals feel before a storm. In the demon world, this kind of thing might mean the imminent fulfillment of a prophecy, or the opening of a rift into any of several different hell dimensions, or the arrival onto the scene of a new major player.

Or, it might just mean it was one of those nights.

He wandered without any clear purpose, not sure whether he was seeking the cause of this odd, edgy expectancy, or simply responding to it. The skies were clear, the moon low but bright, with just enough breeze to keep the air from hanging heavy. He had little sensitivity to shifts in temperature — the passing of a dozen generations had dimmed even the memory of such responses — but he had spent enough time watching prey (while still blithely soulless), or attempting to fit in, not draw attention to himself (once a semblance of humanity had been thrust upon him, unsought), that he was able to recognize this as a mild, pleasant evening. What Buffy and the others would describe as "a great time to be alive", with only a fleeting awareness — if that — of the pang such words would cause him.

Great. So it wasn't just that kind of night; he was in one of those moods, as well.

There had been more of that lately than usual, although 'usual' wasn't really a useful term for describing his current existence. In fact, since the first words he had ever spoken to Buffy, his 'life' had been made up of one wrenching shift after another. Coming to care for her. Coming to love her. The months as Angelus, and then an unmeasured agony — centuries, perhaps — in the hell into which he had been catapulted by the repetrification of Acathla, and the weeks of recovery once Hell, too, had spat him out as unworthy. And then, just as he had finally begun to find some sense of equilibrium, the tormenting images presented to him by the manifestations of the First Evil …

This was the first time that he had consciously considered it, though he had been aware of the effects for quite awhile: he had been through more changes, in the brief time he had known Buffy Summers, than in the century before meeting her. And that _included_ the horrendous, lunatic chain of circumstances that had taken him to and through Viet Nam.

No, this wasn't the time — wasn't the right kind of night — to be seeking Buffy's company. The miraculous snowfall at Christmas, divine intervention or no, had dulled the sharpest edge of his despair, so that he was no longer actively suicidal; still, he was a long way from being at his best. Previous bouts of depression had been known to last upwards of a decade; he couldn't afford to take any such lengthy, apathetic route to recovery this time, but even so it couldn't be rushed past a certain speed. Pace it properly, do it right, get it settled and then move on.

Solitude. Night and solitude, and maybe some useful activity. He had often accompanied Buffy on patrol, but had never done a solo sweep of Sunnydale unless specifically seeking some necessary artifact or individual or piece of knowledge. Now was the right time for it. Use the restlessness to effect, continue the process of atonement, perhaps save a life or two to tally against the uncounted multitudes he had joyously snuffed out.

Oh, yes. That kind of positive attitude would definitely make all the difference.

Cemeteries, nothing. Various lightly-traveled sidewalks easily accessed from shadowed alleyways (_prime hunting territory,_ his caged instincts slyly whispered), still nothing. City parks, lovers' lanes, even playgrounds, all equally unfruitful. Clubs, bars (such as could be found in this white-bread community), all empty of possibility. He was almost desperate enough to check out the Bronze … but no, that was where he would be most likely to run into Buffy, and — since he hadn't so much as crossed her trail tonight — she was probably there already, meaning it was more than adequately protected. He was nearly jumping out of his skin with the weird energy of the evening, but there just didn't seem to be anything available for him to vent his tension into by killing it.

He finally found something … but a very unlikely something, and in an unlikely place.

Most demon bars were a no-man's-land: the demons themselves might observe internal truces, but humans (other than the ones working there, and even they couldn't always count on being excepted) were generally considered fair game. Somehow, the Alibi Room contrived to avoid this, and more amazingly did so without using protective wards or mystical enforcers to maintain the status quo. Willy, the barman and apparent owner, didn't even have demon bouncers; he seemed to do it all by wheedling, glad-handing, mollifying the obstreperous with complimentary drinks, or prevailing on the other patrons to keep their more boisterous cohorts reined in. It was an achievement worthy of a papal nuncio or a UN Secretary-General, though the ends were considerably less respectable.

Assuming one was willing to tolerate the company — and the smells — a human could not only slide up to the bar and have a drink in reliable safety, he could usually go home afterward without being eaten, liquefied, mutilated or sacrificed along the way. However Willy managed to pull it off (and Angel honestly had no idea), a ten-block area surrounding his establishment was probably the safest territory within the Sunnydale city limits. You might go there if you were seeking information, but never if you were looking for trouble; Willy's was the one place that trouble almost automatically wasn't.

Tonight, however, it was where Xander Harris _was_.

At the sight of the lanky teenager, Angel automatically looked around for Buffy; he hadn't even realized that Xander knew the whereabouts of this place, and it seemed unimaginable that the boy would have come here on his own. There was no sight of the Slayer, however … and, more telling, the body language of the other customers wasn't what he would be seeing if she were here. Further, Xander wasn't bracing Willy for supernatural gossip, or eyeballing the interior for any other likely source; he was sitting on a bar stool, his back to the rest of the room, five shot-glasses sitting empty on the counter in front of him and his hand clenched around a sixth.

This could not possibly be anything but bad.

Angel did not want to be here. Did not want to deal with Xander. Hated the thought, truth be known. He sighed, went to the bar, and took a seat on the next stool over. "This wasn't really something I expected to see," he observed matter-of-factly.

Xander glanced over, saw him, and _that look_ came into his eyes. "Go to hell," he said.

"Been there," Angel said. "In fact, I understand you had something to do with that. I've never really thanked you properly."

Xander tossed back the drink he held, and waved for a refill. "Thank me by parking your undead ass somewhere else. I hear the Sahara's really sunny this time of year; you can kick back, soak up some rays —"

Willy scurried forward, looking (as always) guilty, anxious, furtive, and eager to please. "Angel, buddy, hey," he said. "Happy to see you, so happy you wouldn't believe. You the kid's safe ride?" Angel and Xander both turned hard eyes on him, and he quailed backward half a step before recovering. "Seriously, your tab's covered tonight if you'll take care of him, I don't need the Slayer decidin' this joint'd look better burned flat. What's your pleasure? Got the basic pig's blood, farm fresh, just in this mornin'. Want me to spritz in a little O-neg, just to give it some zip?"

Angel's voice was level, soft, and dead cold. "Funny thing. It sounded like you just said you carry actual human blood here."

The weaselly barman held up both hands, palms out. "Hey, strictly as a flavor enhancer. And volunteer donors only, very well paid. Anybody understands the rules around here, it's Willy."

"Glad to hear that," Xander said. He tapped the glass in front of him. "Another."

Willy's eyes darted back and forth between Angel and Xander. Angel gave him a raised eyebrow. "You're serving a minor?"

"He serves fucking _demons,"_ Xander spat. "You think he cares about the date on my driver's license?" He swept the empty shot-glasses off the countertop in front of him. "Gimme another one, I said!"

"No," Angel said to Willy. "He's done for tonight."

Willy sighed. "Sorry, kid," he told Xander. "You can cause me problems I don't need, but I'll risk you over him any day. Breath mint?"

"Screw you," Xander said. "Both of you." He stood up and lurched for the door.

Angel caught up with him out on the sidewalk, and almost clenched his hands as the outside energy sang again through his senses. It was still that kind of night, a night for _action,_ and this wasn't action. Balked for the moment, he let some of his frustration spill into his voice. "You're some piece of work, you know that? What brought on this sudden urge for suicide?"

Even his predator's hearing couldn't make sense of Xander's snarl/ slur/ mumble, but the extended middle finger communicated the basic point. Angel shook his head, took hold of Xander's arm, and said, "Let's get you home. I really don't need the aggravation right now."

This time the words were intelligible. "Hate you."

"You've made that pretty clear," Angel said. "By word and deed. I know you hate me, and I know why. What I don't know is why you picked tonight to get drunk, or a demon bar to drink in."

"I hate you!" Xander shouted. _"All_ of you!" He yanked his arm away and plunged down the sidewalk. After a dozen steps, however, he fetched up against a lamp post, and bent over to throw up into the street by the curb.

Taverns had once been a major grazing ground, so Angel had a thorough and professional understanding of human intoxication. Xander had imbibed far too much, far too quickly, and the effect had hit him like a stone mallet … but then his untutored stomach had rebelled, and he had just now spewed out probably half of what he had taken in. Pale, unsteady and wretched though it left him, it would speed his recovery. "Nice," Angel said with a satisfaction he didn't try to hide. "Tasted a lot better going down, didn't it?"

"Oh, you bastard." Xander heaved and retched again, but produced nothing. At length he pulled himself back upright, and glared at his self-appointed rescuer. "You've _always _been a bastard. Never fooled me for a second."

"Tonight, I'm not trying to." Angel gestured toward the street behind him. "Like I said already, let's get you home."

Xander squinted at him, then shook his head. "My house is this way," he said, and began to stagger in the opposite direction.

"Sure," Angel called after him. "If you don't mind circling the globe, and dealing with a couple of oceans while you're at it." Xander stopped and looked back, blinking, and Angel added coolly, "This way, though? Half a mile. And no oceans."

Xander thought about it, peering alternately in Angel's direction and back along the street down which he had started. Finally he said, "Oh. Right."

He returned, and he and Angel started off together. After a minute, he muttered, "I still hate you."

"And you always will," Angel agreed. "I really do trust you to keep holding up your end on that."

Xander's reply was a reverberating belch.

_Ten minutes,_ Angel thought. _Maybe fifteen. Then he's home safe, and I can move on._

~ – ~ – ~

Much as he wanted to just deliver the boy and be off again, one matter still hadn't been settled yet. After they had been walking for a brief time, Angel broke the silence. "You never answered my question."

Just in a few blocks, Xander had ceased to weave as he walked, and was now proceeding more or less steadily: the wonders of youth, a speedy metabolism, and the power of reverse peristalsis. He looked to Angel and said, "Huh?"

"Willy's," Angel prompted. "Alone. Drinking heavily. Several really stupid things at once."

Xander's lip curled in the contempt he regularly directed at his current companion, but his tone was defensive and sullen. "It's none of your business."

"If you get yourself killed, it'll hurt Buffy," Angel said bluntly. "So I want to know what tonight was about, and if this is going to be a regular thing."

The use of Buffy's name had jerked Xander into focus; he shook his head now and said, "Regular, no. Right at the moment I'm thinking, this whole alcohol thing, not really my scene. Oog." He frowned, looking straight ahead as they walked. "And I wasn't trying to get myself killed. I just … I didn't _care."_

_In Sunnydale, basically the same thing,_ Angel thought. Aloud he said, "So why?"

Xander's expression was bleak, unreadable. "Ran into an old friend tonight."

"Okay," Angel said. Meaning, I'm with you, go on.

"Hadn't seen Carlie since '97, her family moved to L.A. sophomore year. But there she was, and she saw me and smiled and waved … We'd always got on okay, but now she's looking really good, and she's glad to see me, and there's like this _connection_ running between us. And all the time we're walking along chatting, I'm keeping half an eye out for what's going on around us, 'cause that's what you do in the 'Dale. And I notice where we are, and two things go through my head at the same time: _'Whoops, don't want to cut through the park this time of night, too easy to get picked off,'_ along with _'I wish Buffy or Willow were here, they'd see the whole Cordy thing wasn't a freak event, I _CAN_ attract non-demonic women …'__"_

"Ah," Angel said.

"Right." Xander's face twisted into bitterness. "I had time to think _Oh, crap_ and grab for a stake, and then she was yellow-eyed and toothy and coming at me. So my big night turned into me trying to brush my 'friend' out of my hair and clothes, and all of a sudden drinking seemed like a totally excellent idea."

"I'm sorry," Angel said, and meant it.

"Like I believe that," Xander sneered. "For all I know, she was one of yours."

"Maybe," Angel answered evenly. "But probably not. Except when I was sending a 'message', I was always more interested in killing than turning." _But don't forget Penn,_ the mocking inner voice prompted. _Or Giselle, or Drusilla, or …_ He shoved away the memories, adding, "And I didn't make any side-trips to Los Angeles around then."

"Yeah, 'cause I'm all about caring when you did what. Riddle me this, Dorkula —"

"Quiet," Angel interrupted.

Xander waved it off. "You can't take the heat, get outta the microwave. What I wanna know is —"

"I said _quiet."_ Angel put a warning hand on Xander's shoulder. "Something's out there, and I can't track it while you're talking."

Xander looked around. They were in a long stretch without street lights, a dark sea between islands of brightness, but he would know that Angel could see deeper into the night. "How far out there?"

"Next block over," Angel told him. "But headed this way, it sounds like." He glanced at Xander. "Quite a few of them."

"Hmm." Xander thought about that. "Run now?"

"I think a fast walk would do it." Angel pointed. "That way. Just enough to get us out of their path."

They moved, quickly and quietly — though, to Angel's preternatural hearing, Xander might as well have been a snorting buffalo — and took a place of concealment behind one of the shade trees spaced periodically along a street that had phased from commercial to residential while they walked. Angel kept Xander pushed back out of sight, but stuck his own head out far enough to watch for the as-yet-unseen others. _This_ was what he had been looking for tonight … but not now, not while he was still saddled with the boy's safety …

Ahead of them, he saw a series of low, quick-moving forms flit across the street. They were traveling against the grid, passing through hedges and back yards, over fences and around lesser barriers. That was how they had caught Angel's attention, this pack movement going at angles to normal lines of access. The breeze carried their scent to him as they passed, and he grunted in recognition and surprise.

"What?" Xander asked.

"Ptarmiiki," Angel said. "Foraging party, I think." He stepped clear of the tree. "There are hives here and there in Central America, but I've never heard of any this far north."

"Hives, huh?" Xander peered in the direction Angel was looking, but by now there was nothing to be seen. "Demon killer bees, working their way across the border? Or are there, like, demon _coyotes_ to show 'em the way into the Land of Opportunity?"

"Not bees," Angel corrected. "More like three-foot rats, with Stone Age weapons." He frowned. "They settle in, build these big underground complexes —"

"And Sunnydale's got enough sewer tunnels and cave systems to let them go all _Empire of the Ants_, big-time." Xander rubbed his hands together. "Buffy and Faith'll be all over this one. Let's put out a call, head to the Library —"

"You really want them seeing you like this?" Angel asked him.

Xander considered it. "You're right. So it's just you and me. That way, you said?"

"The two of us." Angel allowed himself a thin smile. "You're dreaming. It's not about to happen."

"Fine, suit yourself." Xander turned away. "I'll handle it on my own."

Angel sighed in exasperation. "Are you crazy? This is out of your league." He took hold of the boy's arm. "Like I said, I'm getting you home. Come on."

"Yeah?" Xander favored him with that infuriating adolescent grin. "You sure you can pick up their trail again after you drop me off? No? Or would you rather run off and leave me alone, all drunk and defenseless, while you go sniffing out demons? 'Cause it's gotta be one or the other, unless we tackle it together."

Angel had once overheard Buffy grumbling, _Xander is so dumb when he's right._ That was God's honest truth; the boy was a clown, a gadfly, a goof, a constant and almost intolerable irritant … and he was right. If the Ptarmiiki were just getting started, Angel needed to locate their nest before their population escalated; if they were already established, it was even more important to find and stamp them out; and, in either case, he couldn't afford to lose track of them now.

_Or_ to leave this soused idiot unprotected against the various supernatural dangers he seemed to attract with near-Slayer allure.

"This way," Angel growled, starting off abruptly. "We just want to find out where their home base is, so this will be tracking only. Try and keep up, there's no point in bringing you along if you slow me down so much that we lose them."

Xander kept up, though Angel was moving with such swift, long strides that the boy had to fall into an odd bobbling jog to stay even with him. "Know what I'm looking at?" Xander inquired after twenty seconds' travel. Angel stared stonily ahead, refusing to respond, and Xander happily answered himself: "Dead man walking."

_Willy's,_ Angel reminded himself with stern resolve. _The customers saw us exit Willy's together. So if I just left him for dead here, Buffy would eventually hear about it._

Fortunately he had long experience in denying temptation, though this one was more than a little severe. Aloud he repeated, "Just keep up."


	2. Part 2

Part II

Though Angel had feared that even the brief delay would allow the roving Ptarmiiki to travel beyond the reach of his senses, a quarter-mile of swift movement along their last projected course brought him — and Xander — to the point where he could detect them again. It helped that the furry demonlings were themselves making no particular attempt at speed; even so, following them on their cross-boundary course presented certain problems.

Simply put, the smaller creatures could slip through spaces that Angel would have to go around or over, all without losing their trail or making sufficient noise to alert them. His strength and nimbleness were easily equal to the task, but Xander's weren't, nor could Angel have carried him quietly even if both had been willing to make the attempt.

After the fifth long detour in as many blocks, Angel was half-crazy with frustration. The boy never quit, he had to admit that much, but it was a clumsy and noisy and ceaselessly-carping refusal to quit. While some of that was doubtless due to the liquor's remaining influence, the realization did nothing to put Angel in a more tolerant frame of mind. He wanted to throttle the boy … and that was the _soul_ side of him.

Finally he'd had enough. "Look," he snapped, "either pipe down or I'm calling this off. We'll lose them anyway if you don't shut up. Can you do that? Can you, for ten minutes, just keep your mouth _still?"_

"Still now," Xander announced solemnly. "Observe the no moving of the lips." And they went on, with Angel pointedly focused straight ahead, where he wouldn't be able to see the jeering light in the boy's eyes.

They were out of the residential streets now, and passing through one of the several city parks, perhaps the one where Xander's dead-and-turned former friend had shown her true face and gone for him. It was easier now to follow the scuttling pack along a direct course, and trickier to do so without being detected. Angel let himself fall back another hundred feet, trusting his predator's senses to follow them even at this safer remove. Xander, beside him, moved with markedly less grace but with marginally passable stealth. Ahead was a playground, like the one where Angel had stopped Drusilla from preying on the seemingly luckless child, long months ago: dim shadows of swings, a tall slide, a teeter-totter, the geodesic latticework of a jungle gym. Forward, Angel automatically swerving to carry them around the pea-gravel (noisier than walking on grass) that surfaced the play-area —

He had an instant's forenotice as a shift of breeze carried him the ambushers' scent, but their rush was simultaneous with his bark of warning. He darted to intercept them, prevent them from reaching Xander, but they were going at the boy from three directions, and with a dismayed squawk Xander jinked away from them, into the gravel and toward the play-structures. Angel followed, striking out at the ratlike warriors and swearing inwardly. They were so _short,_ he was used to fighting things his own size or greater, bending to reach them with hand-techniques would slow him too much and so he was essentially limited to kicks, they chittered and jabbed at him with flint-tipped spears and here came the rest of them! Those must have gone ahead to draw out the pair stalking them, leaving the others to spring the trap, Angel cleared them with a long leap and landed beside Xander, turned to face his pursuers —

There was a wet, sharp coughing sound, and instinct twitched him aside as something streaked past him. "Get away from here!" he shouted to Xander. "Get to the trees, find something to use as a weapon —!" A second cough, he was already in the air in a twisting evasion, something _splatt!_ed against his shoe, again he landed next to Xander. Balked and furious, he seized the boy to _throw_ him in the direction he had commanded. He was more than strong enough but he must have been off-balance somehow, his foot turned beneath him and the two of them lurched to the side, scrambling to regain their balance on the treacherous gravel. Another rush with the threatening spears drove them inside the framework of the jungle gym; as Angel paused for the barest moment to collect his breath, Xander caught one of the spears and wrenched it away from its owner with a yip of triumph, and swung around to counterattack.

There was only one of Xander, and dozens of the Ptarmiiki, but he had a longer reach and was jumping around like a jack-in-the-box, thrusting through the metal bars in all directions, a surprise burst of jerky, frenzied assault. He drove them back, to Angel's instantly hidden astonishment … and, when they retreated, almost knocked himself unconscious as he straightened up and slammed his head against one of the upper bars.

"Ow!" Xander said. "Ow, ow, _owww!"_ He rubbed his head gingerly, looked around at the Ptarmiiki, who had withdrawn into a ring surrounding the jungle gym, and announced, "Crap."

"You should have gone for the trees, like I told you," Angel said sourly. He studied the Ptarmiiki, and assessed his and Xander's situation without happiness. Hemmed in, outnumbered, movement hampered, only the one weapon … This was not promising. Still, give him a second to catch his breath …

Hold on. Catch his _breath?_

"Yeah, well, you shoulda known about the Rat Pack skulking in the bushes," Xander was saying. He raked his undead companion with a disdainful gaze. "Wanna give orders, you gotta have the juice to back it up. Am I getting through here? 'cause the big brooding act may make Buffy all swoony, but it's not doing the least little bit for me."

"We may have a problem here," Angel said.

"Ya _think?"_ Xander gestured wildly at the diminutive demons encircling them. "We're the featured attraction at the Little Big Horn. Oh, yeah, I'd call it a problem, all right."

Angel looked down at where the unseen missile had struck his foot; there was a wet, slimy stain on the shoe, shimmering faintly phosphorescent in the light of the low moon. The leather had blanched and roughened, and some of the liquid had soaked into his sock. "Oh," Angel said.

"What?" Xander asked.

Angel took a few experimental steps. The weakness that had hampered him unexpectedly was greater, and there was something more. "It burns," Angel observed, looking down again at the stained shoe. "I didn't even notice at first, but it's getting worse."

Xander's eyebrows went up. "Hello? Are we operating on the same planet here? We're facing off against Willard's nastier cousins, the ones with a serious 'roid habit, and you're complaining about athlete's foot for the undead?"

Again the urgent wish to just smack the boy until that mouth stopped working. Angel quelled it with the ease of long habit. "All right," he said. "In one way, this business isn't as bad as we thought. In another way, it's worse."

Xander laughed, sharp and mirthless. "And the wonderful just never stops coming. Okay, go ahead, hit me."

_Love to,_ Angel thought. Aloud he said, "First of all, I don't think we have to worry about the Ptarmiiki posing a serious threat to anybody but us. The things they were … I guess you'd say 'shooting' at us, those are secretions from sub-sentient grubs they use for pheromone marking. They're laying out a scent trail, trying to attract a hive queen."

"Hold on, let me make sure I've got this." A wide grin was spreading across Xander's face. "You're telling me you just got tagged by a demon loogie?"

"From what I've heard, this kind of thing doesn't happen very often," Angel went on evenly. "Probably these are refugees from the losing side of a swarm war, with their queen killed by another hive. The odds are heavy against them being able to get a replacement, and without one, they'll die out before long."

"Demon loogie," Xander repeated, visibly savoring the sound of the words. "Yeah, I bet Buffy'll really think _that's_ romantic. So what's the downside?"

"It's affecting me," Angel told him. "What they hit me with. Absorbed through my skin somehow. I feel … weak, slow. I don't know how much worse it will get, but I'm afraid that, before much longer, you'll be better able to fight them than I will."

Xander thought about that. "So, the bad news is, I'm probably going to die. The good news, it looks like they'll take you out while they're at it." He hefted the flint-tipped spear, eyed the bristling swarm that was, so far, still holding its distance. "Not exactly the sunny side of the street, but hey, I'll take whatever little bubbles of cheer I can get."

"No." Angel shook his head. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. We need some kind of plan, some way to get you out of this."

"I'm all over the 'Let's Keep Xander Alive' movement, but how do we do that?" Xander hooked a thumb toward the watching ring around them. "These guys don't look like they're going anywhere soon. And if they decide to come in after us … well, they can move around inside this thing easier and quicker than we can." His expression became quizzical. "What do they want us for, anyway? Stock up the larders in case they can flag down a new Queen Mama?"

"Maybe," Angel said. "The pheromone tag might do double duty, immobilizing prey and sending out signals that this is an open hive. Or maybe we caught their attention too close to their warrens, and they're instinctively reacting against a threat to their home territory." He eyed the steel lattice surrounding them. "I think we should climb."

Xander looked up; the top of the jungle-gym frame was no more than five feet above their heads. "What for? Not much of anywhere for us to go."

"You were right," Angel told him. "We can't maneuver in here as well as they can. For us, it's too enclosed." He indicated the framework all around them. "But if we make them climb up after us, they won't have the speed advantage any more. In fact, with our longer arms and legs, we should be able to move faster than they can. At least, _you_ probably could."

After a few seconds' consideration, Xander nodded. "Good thinking. Or is this even a new idea? Did you maybe play a rollicking little game of Clean Out Kindergarten with Drusilla some night, back in the Bad Old Days? 'Cause you never know when one of those classic massacres will be good for a much-needed brain boost."

"Can you just let it go for awhile?" Angel asked, long-pent annoyance finally escaping. "I know we've got issues between us, but can you save them for sometime when we're _not_ having to work so hard at staying alive?"

_"I'm_ trying to stay alive," Xander corrected sharply. "You jumped off that train so long ago, they didn't even _have_ trains yet."

Any retort Angel might have been tempted to make was abandoned as the pack charged them again. Xander dodged back deeper into the tangle of bars, thrusting with the captured spear and kicking out at the Ptarmiiki who pressed him from the sides. Angel climbed, forcing himself upward with trembling muscles. Flint points pierced his legs and scored along his ribs, but he had endured far worse; he hauled himself up out of their reach, shifted heavily to the side, and stretched his hand down to catch Xander by the collar. Xander let out a strangled protest as he was pulled off the ground, and Angel heaved him up into the higher bars with a desperate expenditure of his waning strength.

The Ptarmiiki chittered in frustration and fury at seeing their prey ascend beyond attacking range, and Angel sagged in the bars, his lungs heaving with useless reflex. "They'll come up after us in a minute," he gasped to Xander. "We need to get higher."

They went higher, moving up to the top of the structure. Twice Xander lost hold of the spear, but managed to catch it again before it fell. Angel moved more slowly, cautious as he continued to weaken. At last they perched atop the framework; Xander glanced down at the warrior pack milling beneath them, and said, "Don't expect me to thank you for pulling me up."

"You needn't worry," Angel replied. "I'm not about to waste my time looking for thanks from you."

Xander shifted sideways, studying Angel in the moonlight. "So explain something to me," he said. "Buffy's seventeen, and you're two hundred and … lots more years old. How's that not pedophilia?"

Angel let out a long sigh. "Do you seriously want to have _that_ conversation, here, now?"

"We got anything else to talk about?" Xander asked pointedly. "Now, I know you mixed it up with Dru and Darla for yea long, which automatically means _necro_philia … Just how many philias do The Lonely Ones get into, anyhow?"

And that _definitely_ was a conversation that wouldn't be happening. "Buffy is a grown woman. For most of human history, a female her age would have had two or three children already."

"Not by a guy a dozen times her age, especially when the guy in question is — let me put this delicately — _a walking corpse."_ Xander shook his head. "Seriously, how do you delude yourself into thinking that you with Buffy is anything but a gross perversion of the natural order? I mean, look at it. Her Slayer, you vampire. Her really young, you really old. Her alive, you totally_ way _not. All of it. How?"

"Those are big things," Angel admitted. "But they're not the only things."

"Let me guess," Xander scoffed. "Trooo luvvv."

Angel nodded. "Yes. Exactly. I love her. Nothing else matters. All the rest of it … it's just details."

"Details. Right." Xander laughed crazily. "It's the details that kill ya."

"Right now, it's the Ptarmiiki." Angel pointed. "They're coming up."

The bristly warriors clambered up the bars in waves, and for some minutes there was no time for talk. Xander scrambled around inside the metal framework, stabbing and striking with the spear, shifting constantly to keep himself above the Ptarmiiki. Angel used both hands to hold himself in place, kicked with his feet, watched for weak spots in the manic defense Xander was maintaining and moved to try and cover them. Three times, warriors reached the top level only to be swept squealing to the gravel below; the fall wasn't far enough to incapacitate or even injure them, and they scuttled back to the attack. This was indeed better than fighting at ground level, and Xander was giving an unexpectedly good account of himself (quite a bit more than Angel was doing, under the circumstances) … but the Ptarmiiki kept coming, and Xander couldn't be everywhere.

The tide turned with a spear-thrust; Angel had kicked a series of warriors out and down, still working to fill the occasional gap in Xander's defense, but the last one in line was off to the side, and as Angel turned to address the threat, the chipped point went in below his ribs, angling upward to drive deep into his chest —

— on the _right_ side. The pain was enormous, but the injury itself less debilitating than the poison Angel had already absorbed, a punctured lung being primarily an annoyance to someone who didn't need to breathe. Angel caught the spear-shaft to prevent its being withdrawn, kicked its wielder away, and then tore the point from his chest.

Now he and Xander each had a weapon.

Despite more than two years now of combat experience, Xander was a relative neophyte with piercing tools, besides which he had been stretched too thin to give any opponent more than an instant's attention; he had killed a few, but most he had wounded slightly or just knocked away for a moment. Angel's familiarity with close-in slaughter was centuries deep, however, and even in his weakness he could easily control the light spear. He killed seven in quick order — and Xander got another while the rest responded to this sudden new peril — before the Ptarmiiki withdrew to huddle below them on the gravel of the playground.

Angel looked up to find Xander favoring him with that reckless, loopy grin. "Not too shabby," Xander observed. "Keep it up, and I'll let you be my sidekick." Into the night around them, he called, "Hey, Sunnydale! Give it up for the newest super-team: the White Knight —" The grin swung back to Angel, deepening nastily. "— and Deadboy."

So, he remembered. Not just the scene at the hospital, but the words Angelus had used to taunt him.

"We gave them something to think about," Angel said, looking down at the creatures clustered below them. "Not that they actually think, but they have layers of hive instinct, and their instincts may be starting to tell them that we're too costly for prey."

That abrupt liquid cough sounded again from below, and Xander flinched as a tennis-ball-sized globule sailed past him. "Whoa! And now we know why 'vampire' and 'umpire' are totally different words. 'Cause, holy phlegm-bullets, Pulseless Wonder, were you ever off on _that_ call."

Angel gathered himself, his eyes assessing the formation and disposition of the remaining Ptarmiiki. "It looks like you were right," he told Xander. "They're wanting to mark us and carry us back to the warren, a living buffet to win the favor of a prospective queen. It must be finally penetrating to them that the stuff didn't fully paralyze me. Now they're trying it on you."

Xander opened his mouth, either to question the statement or to challenge it, but Angel forestalled him by drawing back his arm and launching his spear down into the mass of warriors. There was an ear-splitting screech, and then an enraged chorus of chittering from the others.

"We're in luck," Angel said to Xander. "Almost straight down, less than a dozen feet away … not a hard shot to make, plus I may be getting some of my strength back."

Xander was unimpressed. "Brilliant tactics. You killed _one_ of them, and threw away half our weapons to do it. Should I give you the medal now, or you want to wait till I can work up a scroll to go with it?" He shook his head, and added, "Dumb-ass."

"I split open the tagging-grub, _and_ killed the warrior holding it." Angel stretched his arms, worked his shoulders; yes, his strength was beginning to return. Another fifteen minutes, twenty, he would be able to fight effectively again —

Movement below them, and he snapped his hand out to Xander, commanding, "Give me your spear."

"What?" Xander pulled the weapon back. "No way! That's the only thing that's been keeping us alive, I'm _not_ letting you toss this one away —"

"They have another tagging-grub," Angel said, harsh and insistent. "There shouldn't have been more than one, but they have another, they almost took me out with the first one and now they seem to be targeting you, _give me your spear!"_

"Wh… what if they've got more that we don't know about?" Xander asked, clearly uncertain but far from convinced. "Or what if you just miss?"

"Then we're dead. But we're dead if we sit here and let them pick us off." Angel locked eyes with the boy. "The spear, Xander. Now." He hesitated, hating the necessity, then he said it. "Please."

It felt like forever: the tipping-point of fate, the moment that would decide everything. An eternity that stretched out over almost three seconds … and then Xander passed over the second spear, and Angel snatched it and hurled it down in a single eye-blurring instant, and the Ptarmiiki's shrieks of fury erupted again.

Though he spoke softly, Xander's voice nonetheless carried through the tumult below. "So I'm guessing that means you got their spare hockmeister?"

"I got it," Angel confirmed.

"Okay, then, what's their next move?" Xander drew a shaky breath. "And let the answer to that _not_ be, 'They haul up Slimer Number Three and commence firing.' "

Angel shook his head. "That seems to have been their last one. And it doesn't look like they can decide what to do now." His smile was faint but satisfied. "The disadvantage of a hive mind. Without a queen, they only have so many instinctive protocols they can apply. We hit them with more complications than they could handle."

"So that's it?" Xander asked. "We just wait them out, let them lose interest and wander off?"

Angel flexed his fingers, shifted his legs on the bars, drew meaningless air in and out of his lungs. Assessing his fitness, the damage he had taken versus the recovery his supernatural physiology was effecting. He was still far below his normal capacity; it would be hours before he healed completely, and most of a day before he was back to full strength.

Xander was right. They should wait. But it was still _that_ kind of night, and — though he no longer let his demon rule any part of him — it and he were agreed right now on the need for some hot, bloody, cathartic violence.

"Stay here," he told Xander. "They can't reach you quickly, and they'll be too busy to try. Yell if you have problems … but I don't really see that happening."

Then he jumped, pushing out away from the jungle gym to land in the gravel below, and swung to face the surviving Ptarmiiki as they charged him in a squealing wave.


	3. Part 3

Part III

They had traveled most of the distance to Xander's house before the boy spoke to Angel. "Okay, you put on your big hero demonstration. Didn't do anything to change my opinion of you, but at least you got it out of your system. So, did you manage to take out all of them? or were you too busy showing off to make sure nobody snuck off to start a new nest?"

"There may be more of them elsewhere in Sunnydale," Angel said, shaking his head, "but none of the ones we saw survived. They kept coming until they were all killed. Every last one."

"And it's supposed to be true just because you say so?" Xander challenged. "Sorry if I'm not convinced. Oh, wait, no, I'm not sorry at all."

Angel sighed; they were back to the old game. "It doesn't matter. Like I said, they were a remnant, desperate to attract an unattached queen before they died out. Even if there are more of them, they don't have one chance in a thousand." He knew what the likely response would be, but the words had to be said. "We did good tonight. _You_ did good."

Predictably, Xander's reply was instant and biting: "Cram it, Captain Caveman." Then, at Angel's blank expression, he added, "What? Big, overhanging brow? Neanderthal cranial structure? You can't tell me nobody's said anything about it."

Angel shrugged. "Spike made a few comments about my forehead, back around the turn of the century, but that was as far as it went."

"Huh," Xander snorted. "Me and Spike agreeing on something. Normally I'd call that a definite sign of the Apocalypse, but this time I'll just put it down to both of us being able to recognize the obvious."

"Well, you still got something out of the evening," Angel noted. "With all that jumping around, you probably burned off enough of what you drank that you won't have to worry about a hangover."

Xander didn't answer that. Half a block later, however, he abruptly said, "Do you really believe the details aren't important? Between you and Buffy?"

"I do," Angel told him. "Some things really are that simple. I'd kill for her. I'd die for her. Nothing else matters next to that."

Xander dismissed it with a loud _pfff!_ and a jerk of his hand. "That's just like you. Kill for her, die for her … it sounds really dramatic, but what does it _mean?_ I'll tell you: it means you know how to make the big gestures, but you don't have the first idea when it comes to follow-through." He stopped, wheeling to face Angel. "You'd die for her? More like you'll die _with_ her. You making another of those dramatic gestures, 'Look at me, I'm so noble and tortured,' and her too loyal and too stubborn to let you do your grand exit by yourself."

The taunting was gone, the automatic envy and hostility; he spoke with bitter conviction, the tone of a man who clearly expects his words to make no difference, but is compelled by honor or pride to utter them anyhow.

Angel let ten seconds pass, fifteen, twenty. Giving that hopeless fury time to dwindle, or at least slow in its increase. Then he asked quietly, "That's really how you see it?"

"You bet your two-hundred-years-dead _ass_ that's how I see it." Xander regarded him with seething eyes. "You say you love Buffy? Do you even know what love is? 'Kill for her, die for her …' Christ. What have you ever done for her, what _can_ you do for her, that isn't all about death?"

"She's the Slayer," Angel said. "That's … it's just the world she lives in. Neither one of us can change that."

Xander's lip curled in contempt, and he began walking again. "Got news for ya, Count Chocula. She may fight in your world, but she lives in mine. No matter how hot she may be for your bones, you're still basically a guy she met at work. Me and Willow — heck, even Cordelia — _we're_ the people in her actual life."

The boy's words had scored on him before, but this was a dead-center hit. It was some moments before Angel could formulate a reply. "I really do love her. Whether or not you believe that, it's true."

"You say that like it makes a difference." Xander's shrug was dismissive, even scornful. "Way I see it, if you loving her gets her killed, she'd be better off without it."

Angel shook his head in denial. "I'd die myself before I let that happen."

"Which normally I'd be all for." The boy's smile was a twisted grimace that held no mirth. "But the problem with you dying before? No guarantee _she_ won't die right after."

Again a long period of silence while they walked side by side. Again, as following their departure from the playground, it was Xander who broke it. "You said something at Willy's."

Angel gave him a sidelong glance. "I said a number of things."

"I told you to go to hell," Xander prompted. "You said you'd been there … and then you said I'd had something to do with that."

Angel nodded. "Right. I wasn't … Time in Hell isn't like time here. I had a century or so of some pretty imaginative torments. One of the torturers' favorites — not _instead of_ the acids and bore-worms and white-hot chains, but right along with them — was to mock me that it wasn't even the Slayer who sent me there, but her sidekick." His eyes met Xander's. "Sent _me_ there. Not Angelus. You knew Willow was going to try again with the Kalderash ritual. You knew that I might get my soul back. You knew … but you didn't tell Buffy. You hid the truth from her, and sent her at me primed for the kill."

Xander's gaze held steady: no faltering, no apology. "Seemed like a really good idea at the time."

"It was," Angel said. He saw a flicker of surprise pass across Xander's face, and smiled crookedly. "What Buffy needed then was fire, not hope. You gave her fire. She came at me with everything she had, nothing held back, and still I almost … _He_ almost beat her. If she'd given it anything less than total effort, she'd have lost, and the world would have died with her." He shook his head slowly. "When I said I'd never thanked you properly, that was what I meant. Thank you. For saving her." A beat. "Again."

Surprise had given away to confusion, doubt, uncertainty, but still Xander wouldn't look away. "I'd do it all over again," he told Angel flatly. "In a heartbeat."

"I know." Angel nodded. "I'm counting on you for that."

They didn't speak again until they had reached the driveway for Xander's home. Angel stopped there, looked to the boy who had fought beside him. "Even if any of the Ptarmiiki are still alive, I really don't believe they'll pose a threat. If you think Buffy and Giles need to know about what happened tonight, though, I'll back you up on any story you want to tell them."

Xander's expression was unreadable. "You don't owe me anything."

"You gave me your spear," Angel pointed out. "It was our only chance, but I'll be honest: I didn't think there was any way you'd actually do that."

Xander took a step back and locked eyes with him again. "Let's get one thing understood here. This business tonight? not a bonding experience. We're not having a buddy moment, 'cause we're not buddies." His voice hardened even more. "I'm not your friend. I'll never be your friend. I'll kill you if you ever give me any kind of excuse, and do an out-of-season Snoopy Dance on your ashes. Think you can keep that straight in your head?"

"You've made yourself clear," Angel said. "I'll count it as a promise."

With a huff of disgust, Xander stalked off. Angel watched until he knew the boy was safely inside the house, then he turned and started back toward … not his home, he had none, but to that section of town where he slept during the day.

From the beginning, he had known the depth and intensity of Xander's attitude toward him. More than dislike or distrust: it was no exaggeration to call it hatred, and Angel had never attempted to mend fences with the boy because he had known it would be fruitless.

There was another reason, though, for leaving that implacable enmity undiminished. Xander was Angel's hidden ace.

The return from Hell had left Angel near-mindless from trauma and isolation, with the recovery still not complete when the First Evil began its psychological onslaught on him. He was past the worst of that now … but the experience was still fresh in his memory, and some of those memories had forced his recognition of things he could have allowed himself to overlook otherwise.

The boy had good reason to hate him; only Giles (and Buffy herself) had better. It had always been apparent, however — nor had Xander ever tried to deny it — that jealousy was the bedrock foundation of his motives.

It would have astonished him to know how jealous _Angel_ was. Of him.

_"She may fight in your world, but she lives in mine."_ That was a large part of it. Angel was no longer a man. He was shaped like one, could pass for one, could imitate human functions … but he had lost his humanity centuries before, and his closeness to Buffy, dear as it was to him, only made it all the more clear just how much he would never be again.

Slayer or not, Buffy was also a young woman. She could walk in the sunlight, enjoy casual friendships and trivial pleasures, grow into full maturity. She could, if she lived long enough — and that was a _huge_ 'if', but not impossible — bear children.

Just not with him. With Xander, perhaps, or any other man whose heart still beat, but never with him.

Xander not only could operate in both of Buffy's worlds, he was doing exactly that, with a long-term effectiveness utterly at odds with the moment-to-moment bumbling that was always at the forefront of his behavior.

Yes, humanity was a large part of it, but only part. More than anything else, Angel envied Xander not just for being a man, but for being the man he was.

Memories again, never lost but made newly searing by the First's manipulations. Liam the wastrel, full of restless dreams but lacking any underlying strength of character, destined by his own nature for an early and sordid death. Nor had his rebirth been any improvement. Newly-souled, Angel had found himself unable to bear the conscience that had been forced back upon him. He had tried to reject the soul, attacking an innocent woman in a Borsa alley; later, he had tried to rejoin his hellish 'family' in China, simply to dispel the loneliness. It had taken a full century, with many backslidings — and then some forceful prodding by the ever-annoying Whistler — for him to reach the point where he could begin to deal with his demons in any way except running from them.

Xander Harris, within a day of learning that vampires existed, had forced his way into an expedition against them.

_I have the strength,_ Angel thought, addressing the silent words to the bitter enemy he had just seen home. _I have the speed, and experience, and ruthlessness. But I'll never have the kind of heart you do. Even if I were a man, you'd still be a better man than me._

He'd meant what he said to Xander. He loved Buffy, and as long as there was any chance for them to share some semblance of a life together, he couldn't stop himself from trying to have it. All the same, he had become uncomfortably aware that, over the past few years, he probably hadn't saved Buffy's life any more often than Xander had.

More importantly: at least twice, Xander had saved her from _him_.

The confrontation at the hospital was the most obvious occasion, of course. Angelus had been amused by the meaningless defiance of "Buffy's white knight", taken the opportunity to slide in another sadistic gibe, told himself confidently that he would always have another chance to get at Buffy without all the likely noise and inconvenience … but the fact remained, the laughing butcher of thousands had backed down from a teen-aged boy. Furthermore, Angel could remember (though Angelus had refused to recognize) that, deep beneath the smug dismissal, there had been a tiny but insistent spark of fear. There had just been … that _look_ in the boy's eyes …

Even worse than that, though, was the first time. When Buffy went out to die in confrontation with the Master, and Angel allowed it … and Xander showed up at his door, armed only with a cross and sarcasm and determination. Bulldozed straight through Angel's fatalism and pessimism and lethargy, forced him to lead the way down into the catacombs, in time — barely — for Xander to breathe life back into her as he, Angel, could never have done.

He had saved Buffy from Angelus' genial murderousness. Just as surely, he had saved her from Angel's weakness and apathy.

The boy had dismissed as meaningless Angel's claim that he would die for Buffy. Even had Angel been willing to admit the fact, there was no point in saying — because it would never be believed — that he would just as readily die for _Xander._

Not out of nobility. Not even out of gratitude. Simply because cold calculation told him that Buffy's chances of survival would always be greater with Xander beside her.

_You said you'll never be my friend,_ Angel thought, again directing his silent words to the young man who had faced him down, defied him, betrayed him, accused him, fought alongside him. _That's fine, as long as you never stop being hers._

He took a deep breath, let it out again: testing the injured lung, tasting the air. Sunrise was still hours away yet, but the thrumming tension that had been with him since his waking was finally gone. Not imagination, it really had been that kind of night … but it was over now, and Angel found himself looking forward to going early to his rest.

—

end


End file.
